ANST - Award recommendation issues..

[Dennis and/or Dory Grace]

Salut, mes Cosyns,

Lyonel aisai.

Kihe or Amra asks about my signature line: 
>> Micel yfel deth se unwritere.
>>                            AElfric of York
>
>Been meaning to ask, so I'll take this opportunity: Translation?

No pasa nada.  The line is the first clause of the last sentence of
Aelfric's Preface to Genesis, the first complete translation of Genesis
into Anglo-Saxon (some time at the end of the tenth century).  Literally
(word-for-word) the line translates as "Much evil does the un-writer."
Cnsidering the context of the quote, Aelfric probably meant something like,
"Bad scribes do a lot of damage."  As a writer and literary critic,
however, I prefer some of the alternate possible meanings, like:  "Bad
writers do great harm" or (and this one's a hu-u-u-u-u-uge anachronistic
stretch) "Book burners do much evil."

lo vostre por vos servir
Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace
_____________________________
Dennis Grace
University of Texas at Austin
English Department
Recovering Medievalist
mailto:amazing at mail.utexas.edu

Micel yfel deth se unwritere.
                           AElfric of York
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